Sherlock Holmes 01: The Breath of God by Guy Adams

Until then we are stuck with steam trains and the air in the tunnels is as poisonous as if we were burrowing through an alien world.
    I worked my way through the crowds towards my platform, the thick smell of smoke and sweat clinging to me as I stood waiting for the next train.
    I held onto my hat as the wind began to build, forced along the tunnels by the train as it approached.
    “Enough to knock you off your feet so it is!” cackled a woman to my right. I offered her a polite smile as she eyed me up. Judging by the state of her painted face it was clear that she considered me a potential client. She gave a grin that showed yellow teeth stained by carmine lipstick, the smile of a clown or a cannibal. She pushed down her skirts as the wind grew even stronger, as if afraid they may blow up around her. I looked away, on the off chance that she was right.
    A young couple stood hand in hand, a handsome pair, on a day trip I guessed. They had that awkward air of a fresh couple, excitement tempered by nerves. It made me think of my darling Mary, now lost to me, and I was somewhat ashamed to realise my eyes were watering as the oncoming train’s whistle howled. “Your feelings are showing, John,” she would have said, reaching out to dry the tears with a soft, gloved thumb. Like Holmes, she had always accused me of keeping my emotions so close to the surface you could read them from a mile away. I couldn’t argue with her, it was true enough. But then what Holmes frequently saw as a failure she saw as an asset. I am as yet undecided as to my own opinion on the matter.
    The train pulled into the station and we climbed aboard. Sitting down on the upholstered bench, I looked at the wooden panelling of the carriage and was uncomfortably reminded of the inside of a coffin, all walnut, velvet and sweet, damp earth.
    The young couple sat down across from me. The doxy a few feet to my left, a puff of cheap lavender toilet water erupting from the folds of her clothes as she rearranged herself on the seat. In front of her an ageing minister, his grey-and-white curls bobbing around his pink face as the train began its shaky journey, scanned the pages of his well-worn bible. Every now and then his lips quivered as he read the words, a soft, sibilant noise coming from him, like a dying breath, as he nearly spoke aloud. An elderly lady sat next to him, picking at loose threads in her bonnet, her face was vacant and dreamy as if she imagined herself to be anywhere but here. At the end of the carriage a pair of young lads laughed and cuffed each other playfully, standing up to “ride” the unsteady train as it shook on the rails.
    I closed my eyes, and listened to the rattle of the wheels on the track, the eager chuffing of the engine as it ate its coke and its heart blazed hot within its iron cage. I could imagine it as a voracious creature, consuming all it could swallow, burrowing through the earth, a never-ending beast of appetite.
    “It will kill us all,” said the doxy and I opened my eyes to look at her. She writhed against the bench as if being tugged by invisible hands, her back arched, her mouth opening and closing as if eating the air. “It will blow hard and sweep us from the earth,” she continued, “the Breath of God cannot be stopped, it curls hot in the lungs of the world.”
    “Is nobody to help her?” I asked, reaching across to hold her thrashing arms.
    “There is no help,” said the old minister, as if reading the words from his bible, “we’re all going to burn.”
    “Let her die,” said the young couple, in impossible harmony, their eyes rolled up into their sockets, their mouths flapping open in perfect unison to let the words tumble out. “She is a harlot and not worth our attention, she deserves no more than the touch of hot pokers, the searing, cleansing fire on her diseased body.”
    I continued to wrestle with the prostitute, made all the more determined by the callous words behind me.
    “Oh God,